


dabbling in death

by grotesqueries



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Obsessive Behavior, Team as Family, Threesome - F/M/M, emotional vacancy, group trauma, ninja antics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2019-08-06 19:49:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16394015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grotesqueries/pseuds/grotesqueries
Summary: “If I murdered someone, she’s the person I’d call to help me drag the body across the living room floor. She’s my person. Case closed.”---just trying to make it through life, one garden-as-graveyard at a time.





	1. ever thought of calling when you've had a few?

 

A phone call wakes Ino Yamanaka from her slumber. With a grumble she rolls over in bed, fumbling for her phone and squinting against the bright light. Shikamaru, of course. A uncommitted curse of his name passes her lips as she accepts. 

“This better be good.”

 “Yeah, yeah. I need your help.”

 “Ne?”

 “Just meet me at the shop.” 

“Why can’t you ever call me to make plans for later? Geez.”

“Ino—“

“I’ll be there, don’t get so worked up.”

 He hangs up without further effort and as she fumbles for the lamp on her bedside table, Ino gets a glimpse of the time and groans - 3:27am. So much for dreamless sleep. She can’t tell if the jitters in her stomach are a visceral reaction to the sudden awakening or a far more insidious omen.  It’s yet another weekend fiasco interrupting her health, she thinks as she swaps her cotton shorts out for fleece leggings and compares the drape of her nightgown against the strategic panels around her knees and inner thighs. With a sigh she sheds her gown, and rifles through a growing pile of clothes beside her bed for a top suitable for whatever trouble Shikamaru has brewed up. 

 

* * *

 

Shikamaru is waiting outside the shop as Ino comes down the side stairs, hair down and slightly disheveled.

 “Shikamaru…”

 He turns, a hand still resting on the door. His expression, visibly stressed, softens immediately. “Ino. Good, hi.”

 “What is it now? Whatever it is, I want to get it over with quickly.” A cold breeze passes through. 

 He ruffles his hair, unusually nervous - but then again, when he wakes her up like this, he’s always on edge. 

 “I need help.”

 “Obviously!” she screeches, stepping forward and nudging him away from the door. “Now you’re just wasting my time, and you know I need sleep! Shika, this is ridiculous!”

 “Neh, don’t blow a fuse. I just... need help. it involves botany, and some gardening, and maybe some ikebana. Whatever.”

 “Whatever?” she double checks the door is locked and glances over her shoulder as she slides the key into her pocket. 

 “There may or may not be an exhumed corpse that needs to be put back in its grave and honored.”

 Speechless, Ino tosses her hands up. 

* * *

 

they trek out to the graveyard in the forest of death, hidden beyond the gates, a resting place for those along the way. Chouji stands in a shallow grave, a smear of dirt obscuring the red of his cheeks. 

“Any luck?” 

“You bet.”

 “You two can’t do anything without me!” Ino says in greeting, pulling her hair up into a twisted pile on her head. “Why are we digging graves in the night?”

 “Recovering plans that were left... uncovered.”

 “How’d you find out?”

 “Only an amateur buries someone without fencing their body.” Shikamaru grumbles, pulling his hair up into its usual tight set of spikes. 

 “Don’t ask why w _e’re_ doing this.” Chouji warns, weary already. No doubt he did most of the heavy lifting.

 “If I had to guess, you saw some poor genin chase someone over a ridge, and you feel bad for not intervening. You could have at least shown them how to properly do this, this is appalling.”

 “We can’t all speak to the trees, Ino.”

 Ino rolls her eyes, grabbing the discarded shovel and gesturing between the body and the hole Chouji still stands in. “Just haul him in, will you? We don’t want to be caught doing this when day breaks.”

 “Three hours...”

 Don’t remind me.” Shikamaru sighs, bending down to grab the corpse. He drags it over and with a swing that’s almost dramatic he rolls the body in, watching Chouji sidestep around it and reposition it in the abnormal hole with some shame to his demeanor. “We’ll get it done, but I still don’t want to think about it.”

 Ino inspects the rim of the grave and gives it a few hard taps with the shovel. Grains of dirt and sand trickle down. “You can come up now,” she decides, and she extends a hand down. Chouji can clamber his way up, but he still takes Ino’s hand as he clears the brim. He takes the shovel from her hands and asks “Do we need to do something now, or can we start covering him?”

 “Give me a second,” she says. and without further notice she turns and heads off further into the trees. 

 She comes back a few minutes later with an armful of myrrh and lavender, already crushing leaves between her thin fingers. Her demeanor as she brushes the leaves from her fingers into the dark pit of the earth is almost comical. Anyone who doesn’t know her would assume she attends to every sort of nature with the same air of queasiness. They know she’s just like that, in a perpetual rush to outrun herself. They pause for a moment, watching the leaves flutter down, with her arms still laden with branches. 

 “Are we good?” 

 “For now. Start with the dirt while I clean this up... we can’t toss the whole branch in. Awful luck, we don’t need more of that...” her blonde hair catches the barest glimmer of moonlight as it falls into her face. She plucks handfuls of lavender as Shikamaru and Chouji haul dirt back into the grave - her hands get caught under the stream as she sifts the rites in alongside the harrowingly physical reification of burial. 

 As the last of it goes in, the sweat staining their brows, Ino scatters the last of the leaves and takes off again into the darkness, just as the dust settles. They watch, quieted, and wait, unwilling to break the silence. It feels like a pact all over again. It feels almost sacred even while adjacent to the most unholy of activities, intentions be damned. The sun begins to hug the eastern-most mountain ridges, peering up over the sides. Ino returns through the trees, like clockwork as the light begins to hit the purple sky. A softer pink, now. 

 Ino lays a leafy plant at the head of the grave, blessedly unmarked, working the roots she’s just disrupted back into the soul, in the way only she can. They’ve seen it happen - mutilated many a plant over the years just to watch her mend it again. A metaphor, perhaps, but Shikamaru always says it’s just overcompensating for the ruins Ino supposes make up her life. 

 She looks up at them, still silent; still wary as they meet her gaze. Chouji opens his mouth, the first to level the field. He expects the hurried shush. Shikamaru rolls his eyes, but Ino stays silent, peering down at the ground. Nothing yet. Shikamaru’s not sure what they’re waiting for, but waiting has never been unfamiliar. 

 Through the foliage, the birds begin to chirp. Ino stands, slow and steady on her feet, and extends her hands. Dirt meets dirt between their callused hands, and joined together they bind the site, the ritual rites repaired and sentenced back into the earth. Chouji squirms. No stomach for the later stages of death. It occurs to Shikamaru that they must reek of it now. He wonders how unfamiliar death is to the woman harboring her own deep inside. A sentiment unexpressed, but unavoidable. He feels it too, in the corners of the war they all know has come, is coming, and will always be near.  

Chouji gathers the shovels as soon as Ino drops their hands, holding them close. He attempts to gesture his intentions.

 “We can speak now. It’s done. Subterfuge over,” she says with a smile. Chouji’s shoulders drop in relief. 

“Oh, good. I’m going! I don’t think I’m necessary anymore. I’ll take... his things to be catalogued. You two get home safe...” The way he backs away, with arms slightly raised, says enough. Sweet superstitious boy with a heart of gold, the blood rushing through his ears must overwhelm the simplicity of his heartbeat.  

“Shikamaru woke me up and I’ll be damned if he doesn’t escort me back to bed,” Ino replies with a chipper wave. Shikamaru groans, the dirt on his hands suffocating.  

“Ino...” 

“No complaining, Shika. What’s the saying? You made your bed...”

“I made my bed, and now I have to lie in it.” he supplies. With a heavy sigh he looks down at the new grave, easily disguised as a slow-growing fern. “Unfair.”

He walks with her the laughable distance between the forest and the shop, terse in the way he brushes his hand against her lower back. All accidental, strictly a desire for closeness to her as his partner itself and nothing indicative of an ache for intimacy left unfulfilled. Years of tense distance and forced communication have left him tired, yet somehow exhaustion has never stopped him before.  

They mean to part at the foot of the stairs leading up to her apartment, greeting a hazard of stray plants collected over the years, both unclaimed and intermittently forgotten. 

For a short gap of time they hold each other close, emotionless and yet drowning in their own understanding of each other’s specific type of emotionless.  

“Say hello to Temari for me,” she says, “and do me a favor and let me know you need my help before you exhume the body.”

“Better yet, don’t bother you?” he supplies in turn. 

 She grins as they separate. 

 “Exactly,” she says. “You’re learning.”

 “I’ve got an advantage,” he chokes out as they part ways. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her that in the perpetual on and off uphill battle that characterizes his relationship with Temari, they’re off again. They’ve been off for a while. 

 

They don’t speak for a while.  

 

It’s hard to find the words after burying someone they don’t even know, with rites that only seem foreign to them. She didn’t mean it.

Their shoulders bump in the marketplace, and Shikamaru doesn’t say anything even as he comes in for a bouquet for Yoshino. He gestures vaguely, guttural noises from his throat his only reliable indicator. Ino knows what his mother likes. She’s always been a mother to Ino too, in the absence of her own, so Ino sends him off with splendor in hand, anything worthy of her might. Their hands brush in passing. He nods his thanks. 

Chouji doesn’t ask - it’s not his business, even as he watches Ino fade away under his touch. A simple hand around her wrist feels judicial with the way she bores her eyes into skin contact. Shikamaru still speaks, still goes out and drinks and tries to lock his regrets away behind the knots of his back but it feels like dirt under his tongue.  

Chouji can’t wash the dirt from his face. Every time he looks, streaks of dark earth stick even in his pores. He knows it’s just paranoia. Knows no one blames them for their task, even if it hasn’t been them in the dark with the dead in years.  

Not since Asuma. Hidan, buried deep in the earth, their own personal vendetta.  

 

_“Let them go.”_

_“The risk is too great. We can’t toy with something like this, not now.”_

_“Do you think they won’t succeed?”_

_“I’m sure they will. But will they come back the same?”_

_“We’ll see. I trust them.”_

 

If anyone could make it back intact, it would be them. She didn’t mean it. If anything her dedication to making sure they all return in good health, as detached from their bloodletting as they can be with their vitriol so fresh in their minds, is what damns then. In turns she delved inside of them, ricocheting through the familiar wilderness of their minds. They come back alright, adrift in their own mourning but alright none the less. Death is not unfamiliar to any of them. It’s how personal it is that damns them all.

It’s stupid to not assume they’ll be affected. She can only do so much to wipe the blood from their hands.  

In a thunderstorm, Ino finds herself on the rooftops with her legs pulled up, watching the city scatter under the reign of droplets. A tiny umbrella doing all it can to shield her.  

It’s cleansing. A clearer head, the reprieve from crushing avoidance that she desperately needs. Her silence speaks volumes, even if it’s only to herself and the plants around her. They’ve never gone this long without actually talking, missions excluded. Chouji hasn’t canceled their monthly dinner— not even tonight, in a thunderstorm, with the air so charged she feels static bristling her hair. 

 

How long is a while?

 

It’s only been a few weeks. She’s busy, they’re all busy, alternating missions with their desk jobs, shirking desk jobs for afternoons in the shade. Gravity eventually overpowers.  

Ino locks the door behind her with steady hands as she leaves. Everything just in place - hair slicked down and pinned back, outfit appropriate yet thrilling, makeup barely there. Nothing to hide from her boys, not even freckles, but something still feels wrong. 

 The feeling in her gut won’t dissipate. 

 Shikamaru is slouched over, nursing a beer - his left shoulder wrenched a little out of sorts, he winces so slightly she almost doesn’t notice.

 But she notices everything.

 Chouji is late, probably caught in the rain, but regardless of the open space she sits next to Shikamaru, leaving the other side vacant for him. Her hand finds his and rests, fingertips on the bumps of his knuckles. “How’d that shoulder make it past your paperwork?” she asks. A lousy thing to ask.

 “It’s nothing. Pulled muscle, maybe."

 “Not sure I believe that.”

 “Ino...”

 Chouji stumbles through the door, an umbrella in hand that he tries to close in a rush. A puddle drips onto the floor as he snaps it shut. He doesn’t need to look where he’s going to find them - he always books the same booth. Near the back corner, the eagle eye. Nothing gets past them.

 “Sorry! The rain started so quick, I had to help mom get the awning out... I didn’t miss anything, right?” Bare worry on his face is hard to deny. Ino softens. 

 “Not a thing, Chouji.”

 He grins and Shikamaru manages one back, extending a hand to bump against Chouji’s. “How’s your mom?”

 “Good! Dad is out with one of my cousins so it’s just her and me! A roaring great time, if you ask me.” He grins as he takes his seat.

 “Sorry I couldn’t make it to dinner that night. Work got in the way.”

 “Always work,” Ino sighs, casting Chouji a knowing look. She’s met with a pleased chuckle. “Something tells me you aren’t working nearly as much as you say you are, Shikamaru. Too many smoke breaks.”

 “Hey-“ he scowls at her. “I don’t take smoke breaks. Aren’t you the one always complaining about how bad my office reeks?” He pulls away from her with all the contempt he can muster up in the laughable space between them. 

 “Keep up,” Chouji says with a giggle. 

 Ino turns her nose up. “I just assumed you carried that stench with you everywhere.”

 “You assumed wrong, then,” he replies hotly.   

 Ino turns red, but stares him down, unflinching. “I never thought I’d say it, but you’ve found a way to make that habit even more repulsive.”

 “You know, Ino, I do it for you,” he quips. voice fond, and she knows he’s being more than just condescending. “Call ahead next time someone sends you over, I’ll be sure to roll out the disgusting red carpet.”

 “I’ll have the pork tonkotsu ramen, and she’ll have gyoza, and he’ll have the shio ramen!” Chouji announces, and the two of them look up from their heated staring match to the curious eyes of their waiter. 

 “Yeah, uh, that and tea. Hot for me, iced for her...” Shikamaru mumbles, handing their menus over. Nin are no unexpected company but their tempers are another matter, and status aside Chouji looks amused at the overall worried demeanor of the restaurant staff. 

 “You two really need to work some stuff out,” he says with a soft laugh. “Go for a run. Climb a tree, or, huh, maybe some gardening,” and then he laughs, from his whole belly, and Ino joins in too, peals coming in a few octaves above him, until eventually Shikamaru has to join in too, and they all laugh, and it feels like a weight off of their shoulders, terrifying and eviscerating and gone to wreak more trouble. 

 But trouble comes later - it can wait. Ino brushes her hand over Chouji’s outstretched palm, the fingers on her other hand reaching out for Shikamaru’s receding warmth. He slides a little closer and takes her hand, full on. A lightning rod always, even as Shikamaru and Chouji brush hands. Just like normal, their usual effervescent circle intact again. 

 

* * *

 

They’re drunk when the time for them to walk each other home comes around. Still pouring rain, only slightly eased. They huddle under one umbrella, hoods up, hands clasped together as they weave around puddles, unbothered by the chaos of the city. Ankles and wrists soaked, at least, the patches of skin left uncovered now prickling with gooseflesh, only a slight shiver. 

 “You two can hold onto the umbrella,” Chouji announces as they come up to the doorstep of his house. Time zipping by, it seems, just barely escaping their notice. “Wouldn’t want either of you to catch a cold! Nothing on your bones to insulate you,” he jeers, handing off the protection to Ino. 

 “Hey, don’t diss my muscles like that. For all you know I’m working on it,” Shikamaru sighs, perfectly deadpan though his wry smile betrays him easily. Chouji drops a kiss to both of their cheeks, fumbles for his housekey, and disappears inside. 

 Ino sets off two paces ahead of Shikamaru, not so far from the Nara estate, and he skids off to catch up, cursing her name as he splashes through a puddle. “Hey, Ino!”

 She glances over her shoulder. “Hm?” 

 “Don’t do that,” he huffs, dipping back under the umbrella. “Defeats the whole purpose of having the umbrella.”

 “I thought your big strong muscles were gonna save you from the cold.” the corners of her lips curl up as he rolls his eyes, his bony fingers tightening around hers to hold the umbrella. “I don’t believe that, considering that tremendous sprain you’ve got... ”

 “You wouldn’t know a joke if it came onto you.”

 “Hey! I love jokes.”

 “Because you are one.” He fumbles for a cigarette as he veers away from her elbow, aimed towards his side. He laughs around a beat up filter as he zips his jacket pocket closed. She sighs, never defeated but content to give pause, and he taps his pockets. A twitch of pain doesn’t go unnoticed. “Eh, you got a lighter? Left mine in my other jacket...”

 “Nope! How troublesome,” Ino chides with a wicked smile. Shikamaru rolls his eyes and plucks the cigarette from his mouth. It just fits behind his ear. In silence they walk up to the Nara park, a tight smattering of bungalows with an overwhelming deer population. 

 Shikamaru stops in front of the gate. “Since you seem to know so much about my anatomy, maybe you oughta come in and fix it.”

 “Oh, if you insist.” A doe peers through the gate as they enter and pass by.  Shikamaru groans under his breath. Already regretting an innocuous decision, but didn’t he see this coming? Self-preservation has never been his strongest suit, much as he may try to live his life along the beaten, suburban road. 

 “Is your mom home?” Ino asks, and Shikamaru lets the guilty realization that he completely droned out Ino’s prattling simmer in his chest for a moment before he drowns it in his stomach. He reaches for his key.

 “No. Traveling again.” The front door opens with a weary click, and Shikamaru pushes it open, stepping in time to hold the heavy wooden door open. Ino passes by, brushing his chest, and never takes her eyes off of him.

 Their damp shoes come off and pile up by the door. Ino brushes a lingering strand of loose hair back and bats her eyes. “Oh. Where to now?” 

 Yoshino Nara hasn’t spent much time inside her own home since the death of her husband. All the trips she’d wanted to go on didn’t pass with him, so with or without him she continues down the list of places she’s only ever been to as an ambassador, and more. 

 “Eh, who knows? Land of Snow last time, so maybe this time she’s in Suna.” he shrugs. Locking the door behind them is done blindly.  A tapestry from Kirigakure hangs in the entryway, vast and blue. Shikamaru looks up at it and sighs. “Some of it is for you. She brought you things...” It’s the heavy weight of remembrance that drops his shoulders, then. A lifeless fear at the tedium of tracking down gifts for Ino.

 Ino breezes by it all, not a single souvenir worthy of her lingering attention. 

 “Not to worry. We can track everything down later... today we already have plans.”

 “You’re making me regret inviting you in,” he groans, and to make matters worse, Ino smiles.

 “You regretted inviting me in before the words even passed your lips.”

 He can’t argue with that.

 

* * *

 

There’s a portrait of Temari in his room. Done in charcoal and painstakingly set in a chestnut frame, it’s a remarkable study of her at her easily arguable finest, not soaring through the air perhaps but looking out over something unreachable with the wind at her fingers. Lately, he’s found himself wondering if he ever knew her at her finest. Lately, he’s taken to tipping the frame down, to avoid catching himself in her graphite gaze.  It’s one of the few nostalgic, intentional touches in his room otherwise occupied by remedial untidiness. An act without heart, like every pair of underwear dropped benignly to the side of the hamper instead of haphazardly tossed from the bed.  The team portrait from their graduation to genin takes up an awful lot of space beside it, especially during metaphorical absence. He finds himself staring at their small faces wondering how things would’ve gone if they’d been different people. Wondering, deeper, if different circumstances really effect the outcome when misery will always come to intended target, time and time again. No strategic missteps to be had. 

 Ino, all grown up and still carrying the mark of misery, doesn’t comment on the overturned frame. A weak blessing. Her opinions on the looks of genin Ino go unvoiced as well. Shikamaru discards his jacket on the back of his desk chair and pulls his shirt off. The shoulder is sorely dislocated despite his own pleadings, and he knows from particular experience with Ino that she’ll need to wretch it back into place. She cooly removes her own jacket, slow as melting ice. 

 Experience still doesn’t prevent the usual wince every time he moves it, and the jostle of Ino nudging him around is no exception. 

 “Watch your hands, Ino...”

 “Lie down!” she grinds out in response, giving him one last prod towards his bed. “Dislocated shoulder on the edge.” 

 No dissent from him of all people, he does what she says, and to his credit reacts little as she sits on his back and trails her fingers over his bicep. “Do you want something to bite down on?”

 He shakes his head. “Just do it.”

 Ino’s hands on his arm part ways to explore different directions, one on his shoulder blade and another just below his elbow, his arm pulled back slightly, wrist brushing her elbow. She braces herself and then pulls back, sliding the joint back into place as Shikamaru pants his displeasure with the matter.

 “It never gets better,” he groans, avoiding the urge to distance himself from Ino as the pain radiates from the arm she now jostles around, an incomplete test. 

 “And yet it keeps happening. I’m starting to think that joint is deformed, that why your shoulder is always sliding out at the vaguest wrench!”

 “If only. Maybe then I could retire,” he says. She’s examined him enough to know it’s just bad luck. Peak physical form, that’s him. Perfectly ordinary for a shinobi. Regrettably. 

 “What was that stupid formula again? House with a picket fence, pretty wife, two kids, one boy, one girl... I suppose you couldn’t have a dog with all of the deer... that’s boring, Shikamaru. And unlikely.” she huffs as she rolls off of him, landing on her back. She props a knee up and shuts her eyes. 

 “Better plan than what you’ve got in mind, I’m sure. You’re obsessed with unattainability. You’ll just disappear when someone finally tries to marry you.”

 “Hey!” 

 He glances over his shoulder, expecting to see her scowling at him, but her face is soft - a change from her usual frigidity. Hurt. They both know it’s true - she’s enamoured with her own success, and when the gross triumph of others surpassed her, she settled for being unattainable. Too beautiful to court, the very best in her specialties, always clever. Regret immediately colors his face, but he doesn’t say anything. The damage, however true, is already done. 

 She sits up, ready to leave, and he sits up too, the weight of his torso on his sore arm as he snatches her by the wrist. 

 Silence is the coward’s way out, and so he finds his words. Barely. “You know I don’t mean that you’ll be alone. Everyone’s got another half, right?” Old platonic theories that do little to express what he’s really thinking.

 “Don’t try to catch yourself, Shikamaru, as if you’re mid-stumble.  You’ve already hit the floor.”

 “Ino.”

 She pulls her wrist from his hand with a sharp tug. “Enough! You and Temari deserve each other. Your emotional ranges only extend as far as each other, after all.” 

 As she stands and makes for the door, he wearily goes after her, and says the words he’s been choking on for a month. 

 “Temari and I broke up.”

 She pauses in the doorway, and her head snaps over her shoulder. 

 “Not just fighting?”

 “No. Separated.”

 “How long?”

 “Ino, I don’t know. We were fighting, and then we didn’t see each other, and then when I went back to Suna she was set to go off on her own. Haven’t heard from her since.”

 She’s silent. Stunned, or rather, processing. 

 "So I guess you’re right about our emotional range,” he continues, and Ino turns. “Except now they only extend as far as ourselves.”

 “I’m not going to apologize to you.”

 “I don’t want your apology.”

 “—but you do have my sympathy.”

 “I don’t want that either.”

 “What do you want?”

 “I don’t know anymore.”

 The determination in her shoulders wanes. She sits back down beside him and sighs, defeated. “I don’t know either, Shika.”

 He takes her hand in his, a begrudging comfort for them both. His fingers stroking circles on the back of her hand, and when she rests her head on his shoulder he presses a kiss to her forehead. Simple.

 She lifts her head, abrupt, to look at him. Her stare met by his own unpenetrating gaze. “Have you told Chouji?”

 “Sort of.”

 She grimaces. “Sort of doesn’t cut it, Shikamaru.”

 “It seems like nothing ever does. Too troublesome. I should just move to where no one ever knows me. Save myself the bother.” His mother certainly had a fit - _what did you do, Shikamaru? You could have married her._

 He’s too young to be married. 

 Salt rises on his swollen tongue. 

 Ino leans in to break the tense pause, tentative until their lips brush together, and then the exact opposite - they know better than to be careful with one another. This isn’t time spent in the dark with civilians who exoticize their professions, breathy requests as to how durable they are, how rough they can be. They’re on equal ground, two hurricanes in the gulf of sorrows. 

Shikamaru grasps Ino, fingers at the nape of her neck, exhausted by his own hunger and barely showing abundant enthusiasm. 

But if anyone knows how he’s feeling, it’s Ino. She’s capable - in control as she climbs into his lap and wraps her arms around him. Her lips against his a mortal remedy, an apology and a promise in one. He rests a hand on her hips and slides them down to hold her a little closer. Her dress rides up over her hips, bandages damp from the rain coming loose. He fingers them absentmindedly, a habit unfulfilled that almost goes by unnoticed. From her hips down, he searches for the loose end tucked up, and finds it midway down her thigh. Breath hot against her cheek as he searches for consent in her gaze - she nods sharply, the two of them eye to eye. Unwavering, he unravels her bandages, the wide cloth material under her dress going loose in his hands. One thigh and then up over her hips, down the others - he’s left with an empty left hand and a right hand full of bandages, and the still uncompromising stare of Ino through it all.  

“Satisfactory?” he quips, tossing the bandages to the side.  

“You don’t even know what that word means.” 

“Not true.” he mumbles, running the edge of his thumb over the hem of her underwear. Ino snags a nail on a bit of dry skin and retreats almost entirely, repositioning herself in Shikamaru’s lap and refitting her hands in the nigh imperceptible dip of his waist. Soft skin against her own, muscles wriggling in anticipation under his skin. She scoffs. 

“What do you think it means?” she asks, not even attempting to keep her voice casual. 

Shikamaru shrugs, and Ino rolls her eyes like she does before she’s about to embark on an epic retort, and he shrugs again - slower, lazier, completely unbothered by her tenuous grasp just under his ribcage. The half full rings her nails leave on his skin - barely a second thought.  

She leans in again, mood tempered, temperament tamed by the careful roll of their hips together. She looks at him with a tilted head, mocking concern as she looks him over.  

“Do you want to know?" 

“What?" 

“What it means." 

“I know what it means, Ino." 

“I’m just asking. You never seem satisfied." 

Shikamaru curses under his breath. She’s baiting him. Waiting to see what the next move is, so she can challenge it. Always playing into and against his every strategy, always reminding him why she got top marks - the innate understanding of human emotion that’s always been shared with him.  

Shikamaru lifts her dress up like it’s barely a veil, and tosses it aside like it’s nothing, like remnants of a shadow of his own machination. 

When he moves to set her aside, planning his next move, one hand already retreating to his own waistband, she’s already there. Already made quick work of his button and zipper, his tie belt little more than rope in her deft hands. He’s not stunned, exactly, but there’s always an assimilation of a subdued, anticipated understanding, a ripple that he catches and adds to. 

He shifts, twisting so Ino is below and retreats only briefly to remove his pants, distracted by the aimless drift of Ino’s focus from him, to her raised nails. A ruse, probably, as his form still stands behind her wavering hand. 

“Vapid,” he muses, feeling a bit objectified besides, with his pants off and his hip slightly cocked. Gangly limbs feel a little more uncouth under such a lack of scrutiny. 

“Yeah, what was it you called me?" 

“I didn’t. So, vapid."

“Obsessed with unattainability,” she murmurs, leaning back on her elbows, now watching him with a mischievous glint in her piercing eyes. “yet I’m still here." 

“I don’t claim to know everything, Ino. If you’re going to prove me wrong, now is as good a time as any, right?” he rests his hand on her kicked up knee, tilts her legs open just a little wider, looking down at her like he suddenly gets it. Like it’s never clicked into place before now, which it certainly has -  

This isn’t the first time they’ve done this. It’s just the first time after a long stretch of something else and he remembers why he tried to forget this.

Ino sits up and looks up at him with her diamond bright eyes, rescinding her challenge, concern briefly flashing. “Do you want to be right?" 

His sigh lifts an anchor’s worth of weight from his shoulders as he leans into her and kisses her again, messy and unbalanced and with his hands slipping down her knees and skipping over to her shoulders, anticipating his fall as they tumble back the measly degrees between Ino’s back and the tussled sheets. His shoulder aches to the point of audible pain, a fevered gasp his only admission aside from a missive managed through his clenched jaw.  “I don’t claim to know everything because I don’t want to know everything."  

She groans at his riddles, lacing a hand in his hair and tugging him further down, pressing their lips together again - she even has the gall to laugh, forcing the brief interruption, and their teeth click together, prompting an immediate groan from Shikamaru. She giggles again, teeth nibbling at his lower lip, and he rears back just a little to slide his hand down her stomach, tugging at the band of her underwear, eyes fluttering open, watching for Ino’s agreement. 

In direct response, she slides her hands into his boxers and takes his dick in her hand, stroking him with the sort of lazy fervor that leaves him weak in the knees. Brat that she is, she never forgets what makes him tick, or how different he is from Chouji, who always prefers friction in their relations. 

Shikamaru inches his hips against her as she delicately pads the tip of her thumb over the ridge of his veins, batting her eyes at him, watching his eyes flutter shut for the briefest moment. Legs holding him up flutter and he presses a little harder against the curve of her stomach, fingers sliding down past her underwear. She grins, like it’s just another morning in bed. Back to being such a teenager, like every moment is another game to play.  “Ugh, don’t look at me like that…"

“Like what?"

“Ino,” he groans. “You know. You know what I mean,” and she strokes him in time with the almost-chant of his plea deal, her grip loose but a constant reminder that she’s in his bed, it’s her, he’s that hard for her —His feeble groan doesn’t quite express his latent frustration with the situation, but it does enough to prompt Ino to pick up the pace, with bare desire glinting off of the sharp edges of his eyes and leaking out over his angular cheekbones. He pushes his hips against her, aching for the rippling pleasure of her fingers stroking him caught up in his own demanding rhythm. Her own hips cant up against his hand, pressed against her with barely enough pressure. She shuts her eyes, an acquiescence to his precocious request.  He readjusts without really thinking, shoving her underwear down to accommodate for the two fingers he sends in search of her, as brusque as he always is when it comes to undressing her. The sound she makes as he inches towards her clit is almost like a coo - an encouragement all wrapped up in her own desire. Some sort of ache for the calluses on his fingers. 

If it’s a way to get away from thoughts of Temari for him, then it must be something stranger for Ino — without a partner ever since the situation with Sai went light-headed, when he took his leave with an anbu mask and left Ino to pick up the pieces of their tattered tapestry. Maybe it’s her way of throwing it all into the trash, like she always threatened. Maybe she’s already had Chouji to cleanse her palate, though no mention of it slipped from either mouth. Maybe it’s just him left. He’ll have to ask. 

Digression, as he remembers where he’s at. The unvoiced echo of her telling him don’t think about it too much. 

She whimpers when he finally touches her the way she likes, all wound up with the rush of doing this again. Her timing skips, the pressure of her hand around his dick intensifying as he applies similar sort of pressure to her clit, the perfect give and take. Some sort of mutual understanding, the sort they may never admit except behind closed doors.  

“Ino,” he whispers. Her eyes snap open.  

“Shikamaru,” she replies. Her hips tremble against the weight of his hands on her. He slips down to her opening, feeling for her wetness there— he slides a finger in and she gasps, leaning into it, eyes flashing with the briefest remembrance of this sort of expansive agreement. He slides another finger inside of her and moans as she tightens her soft grip on him, just as tough with him as he likes when she’s closer to getting what she wants.  His lazy fingers moving in her no longer seem slovenly, and every little noise comes with a genuine appreciation, a shadow of relief as he provides, distraction from the sort of lovers she was always rooting for.  For a moment she thanks the gods, thoughts lingering for too long on the sort of lover he must have been to displease Temari. It’s always remained a mystery why the two of them couldn’t make it work. The greedy, selfish flicker of desire passes, and she frowns as deeply as she can with so many other layers of distraction upon her. 

_Wipe that disgusting look off of your face_ , she reminds herself. It’s not fair to be this content and still entertain ennui. Not at the same time. 

“Ino,” he cuts in, “Are you good?”

 Not now. “I am,” she replies in a rush, gaze focusing in on him. “Are you?”

 He leans down to kiss her, open-mouthed and exceedingly desperate to keep their legacies right where they belong, which certainly isn’t out in the open. How good it is that their secrets stay right where they leave them - all those instances of Sakura mocking Ino’s own loneliness rumble through both of their heads. 

 Her own tangential existentialisms get the better of her. “Please,” she says, and Shikamaru groans like she’s pulling the wool over his eyes. 

 It doesn’t stop him from grabbing a condom from his bedside, and it doesn’t stop him from nudging her away so he can sit down. Feigning exhaustion like the best of them, he rolls the condom onto his dick and she slides into his lap, equally distant and in her own head. 

Correction, their own tangential existentialisms.  

She positions him where she needs him, in the aching void between her legs, can practically hear him saying her name as she eases down.  

She rides him slowly, with the sort of forlong stare that depreciates all the other sorts of emotional currency that Shikamaru has come to collect. Piles of unspoken frustration burn a hole in the kitchen countertop. A forgotten sliver of anger jingles in his pocket. Hurtling towards worthlessness,  his jagged breathing the only giveaway. He presses his hips up against her, takes the hand resting on his shoulder into his hand and presses his lips against the flat of her palm. A silent silencing. The ringing in their ears his telepathic broadcast, a give and take as she tilts her head back and sighs, keening with contentment, like she missed this. Shikamaru takes his other hand and curls it around her, by her rib cage and reaching up to her shoulder to tug her hair aside. He places her hand back on his shoulder and puts his lips to her skin, teeth catching against her clavicle, and digging in with only some leftover remorse to leave a mark.  

From her lips escapes a needy string of words, caught up in a shiver that sets her whole body buzzing. Time stretches out into hours, like watching a single bead of sweat travel from someone’s temple to their jaw, as she forms his name. A scolding, briefest flicker of discomfort scrambled in her synapses. She leans in closer and tilts her head down, stares at him through loose blonde hair, whispers be nice to me, and kisses him, never breaking the tedious rhythm they’ve set. Like she doesn’t even notice, she’s so totally above it all.  

She moans and it sounds more like a note of surprise, a squeak with meaning behind it. Shikamaru sighs, grips her closer, wants to bury his head in her hair but finds it silken and sliding away as she moves against him. 

“Not fair,” he sighs, and she hums an agreement, body moving against his, he barely notices but his hips cant against hers and he’s desperate for something, for a release truer than this.  His arm around her waist, he tips them over with only a modicum of complaining about the effort and strokes between her legs - her knee automatically bends up, his hips aligned nearly right. She sighs and tips her head back, hands scratching for his skin, an impatient sort of loving. He has to wonder how soon she’ll be gone again. A scroll could come through the window at any moment. A distant memory set to reappear.   He shakes just reaching for her, not nervous but always feeling out of touch. Unsure of if he’s laying his hands on past or present, praying for the future. Any semblance of normalcy enough to take forward in his perpetually haphazard life. 

 

Where to go from there? Intuition tells her to keep an eye on him and him on her. His shoulder doesn’t slip again, not for a while, but she doesn’t ask regardless. 

 She goes off on a mission, and for the first month they don’t worry.


	2. you came in with the breeze on sunday morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ino returns home, and amidst cramped spaces it gets a little too real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> details on ino's mission come to light! and, i meant to update this a month after and, well, life got in the way! next chapter will be more focused on the three of them together.

 

As the second month rises, it occurs to Chouji over a late, post-academy, return from a mission dinner — “Say, have you heard from Ino yet?”

Shikamaru frowns at his beer. “No. Why?”

“She said she’d write. It’s been a month with nothing coming through... Did she mention anything to you? Extra undercover time, maybe?” 

“Or she’s just being Ino.” 

“Shikamaru...” 

“Meh, she does what she wants, doesn’t she? She knows. She’s in her own good hands.” 

“But what if she’s _not_ ,” Chouji says, cocking an eyebrow. “and she’s not in _our_ good hands because we don’t go to Tsunade? I know you just got back but I’ve been here, and I haven’t gotten anything.” 

Shikamaru _sighs_  like the weight of the world holds him down, and picks at the label on his beer. “Alright, I’ll check my mail.” 

Chouji beams. “Was that so hard?” 

“Yes.”

 

And nothing. 

 

“I’m aware of how long Yamanaka has been gone, Akimichi,” Tsunade sighs. “I’m the one who sent her _away_. I’m not totally inept.” 

“M-Madam Hokage, no one is saying you’re inept, I’m just worried! Shikamaru and I both haven’t heard from her, and she always writes one of us. Just let us go after her. If it’s nothing, we’ll pick up a side job and bring you something sweet, okay?” 

“No,” Tsunade says with a scowl. “It was my birthday last week, I have more than enough _sweets._ You and Nara will abstain from going after Yamanaka, and when she comes home unscathed you’ll be thankful you stayed put.” 

Chouji leaves the Hokage’s office with steam rolling from his ears, and finds his way downstairs to the code breaking chambers, somewhere he only assumes he’ll find Shikamaru. Shiho waves hello in her timid, possibly short-sighted way, and Chouji narrowly avoids getting pulled into a conversation on clan seals by an Inuzuka elder who mistakes the spirals on his cheeks for a mockery of the Uzumaki seal. It doesn’t temper his frustration, but it does bring some color to his cheeks. 

He finds Shikamaru reading a book. Typical. Certainly comprised of old code, but still so typical. It’s probably illegible - ask him to decode it and all he’d do is stare, dark brown eyes impenetrable.  

“What’d old lady have to say?” 

“Not to worry. I don’t believe it. It’s coming on two months now! And I haven’t felt anything. Not a twinge.”

“I hate to say I told you so...”

“Then don’t!” 

Shikamaru shrugs. “If you insist.” He gives his book one final lookover and then snaps it closed. “I’m going to my office. You coming?” 

Chouji, after his own rough approximation of an affronted sigh, grumbles an affirmative and follows Shikamaru out to the desk where Shiho oversees ledgers, notably absent of noted overseer. Chouji shuffles, uneasy, irritated, a bit on edge, like he’s waiting for something. Anxiety has never rested easily upon Chouji’s shoulders and every time he falls a bit to pieces, anticipating the worst. Shikamaru scribbles something completely unintelligible in the ledger and floats away, the perfect foil in his near-total unanimity. Not a thing to bother him in this moment. 

 

But he does miss Ino. That they have in common, but they make do.

Shikamaru nudges the door shut behind them and Chouji approaches, emanating uncertainty, trying to bleed it all out in his exceedingly gentle grasp on Shikamaru’s hips.  

He reflects that his immediate submission to both teammates must be a result of internal stirring, something wounded within him that feeds on the perpetual comfort of knowing. Perpetuity - Chouji touches him the same way he always has, even in the fumbling days of their youth. Hands that love to touch, that find purchase on his hipbones and stroke the offending scars buried in his skin and beg for friction in kind. He must have always been the same too, always slow, always looking for a place to rest. 

Shikamaru steps forward, presses against Chouji, leads him back towards his desk. Like he’s sure of it. He’s so tired of thinking too little and all together too much. Chouji goes breathless and Shikamaru nudges him away, rounding towards his desk. “Don’t overdo it,” he sighs at he perches on the edge of the clutter.  

Chouji looks affronted. “ _Don’t_ overdo it? How?"

 A sigh, and then, the beginnings of a breathless laugh, and he rests his forehead against Chouji’s shoulder. He wonders if that internal stirring is just buried layers of appreciation, that, like shifting tectonic plates, typically find their way back to the surface. His grasp on Chouji in their makeshift embrace then seems less panicked - more symptomatic of a vaguer declaration. The coarse fabrication of his summer jacket irritates the cracked skin of Shikamaru’s knuckles as he reaches past it to rest his hands on his friends chest.  Chouji drops a mingled kiss to his skull, messy hair and all. 

 “I should be telling you to not overdo it. I can tell you’re overthinking.” Chouji scolds, yet unable to keep the light out of his voice. As Shikamaru’s squirms his hips in, Chouji pushes back with a gentle force, consenting effort. 

 “New plan,” Shikamaru offers meekly, lolling his head to rest ear against shoulder, eyeing Chouji’s neck with immodest interest. “Let’s just not tell each other anything.” His fingers press against the space above his ribcage, a prescient weight. 

 “If you insist,” Chouji jeers, and Shikamaru entertains the idea of his teeth on Chouji’s neck, dragging his two front teeth across skin, barely bothering to bite down. Not worth the effort, with Chouji already admitting appreciation of the simple act with the mildest of drawn out hums. 

 

That and the total ease of him lifting Shikamaru up onto his desk, papers be damned. With one hand on his knee, the other on his nape with fingers lightly resting on the smaller strands of hair that his ponytail missed. Shikamaru kisses a tender pink mark just under the tattered collar of Chouji’s t-shirt, managing an amused chuckle at the way he squirms. Finally, Chouji pulls Shikamaru’s head up, a hand fisting in his hair, and presses their lips together. Hungry, and heated, and eternally loving. No one could ever accuse Chouji of not caring. Shikamaru moans into his mouth, partway between wishing Chouji were closer and wishing they were anywhere other than his office. You deal with the hand life deals you, he ponders, and then he remembers he’s got a three o’clock meeting, and it’s 2:50, and, _Oi, Chouji..._

 Chouji, gleeful, laps up the praise, ambiguously avoidant of any other energy, blatantly poised in the way he moans against Shikamaru.

 Who wants to roll his eyes at the theatrics of it, but he can’t. Not like this, not with Ino still missing in action — he pulls away with an uncomfortable sigh, despair at the thought. It’s tedious to align any activity with their presently flighty companion. Too much time falling between the gaps of her ribcage as she preens, even from her disadvantage point... wherever she is. Chouji is enough, he always reminds himself, though time finds itself spurned in his own prioritized demands. Come to think of it, they’re all wasting time. _Great._ Instinct tells him to rake his teeth over Chouji’s bottom lip, pull him in even closer, avoid the ticking time bomb that is a bureaucracy. Troublesome. 

 He opens his eyes, aware even before then that Chouji has him fixed with the most curious of looks. Seeing is believing, and with his eyes open he’s hit with another wave of surefire appreciation. He doesn’t have to let go, he reminds himself. He can just be late. Fake a delay waiting for his midday snack downstairs, claim he got held up assisting Chouji with a personal claim. 

 No, too obvious. 

 2:53. 

 “Chouji.”

 “What is it _now?_ ”

 “I have a meeting soon,” Shikamaru admits, having at least some nerve.

  Chouji scowls. “That’s reasonable. How soon?”

 Another glance at the clock. “Ten-no, seven minutes, now,” to which Chouji replies with an offended, chiding scowl. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Less reasonable. I’ll ... make it up to you,” he mumbles. 

 Chouji rubs at his neck. Vaguely shamed, but mostly disappointed. “Alright. I’ll leave. But you keep an eye out! And I’ll see you later.” still scowling.

 Shikamaru presses an apologetic kiss to the bridge of his nose, skirting down over his cheek to the corner of his lips. “I’ll find you.”

 “Famous last words.” Chouji takes his bereavement kiss and leaves looking a sight unsettled, skirting hastily around old acquaintances as he makes a beeline for home amidst the churning chaos of the Hokage building. 

 

It dawns upon Shikamaru as he waits outside the conference room, 3 minutes early with papers in hand, that not only did he forget to mention Temari to Chouji, but that Chouji didn’t ask. A line of inquiry he has no interest in pursuing, but a curiosity nonetheless. 

 

* * *

 

A week later, Ino strolls into Chouji’s house in the middle of lunch, drops her go-bag to the floor, and pronounces with an unshakable confidence — “I lived, bitch.”

 

Her hair is matted with blood, a streaking all too noticeable in the way she avoids touching her face. It’s everywhere. 

 Chouji scoops her up and squeezes, triumph and relief all in one, yelling as he goes that he knew she could do it, god she’s filthy, _get in the tub, we need to tell Shikamaru,_ who does his level best to rush over - more of a leisurely stroll, but he forgoes a cigarette in the interest of time. 

 Ino draws a bubble bath, intent on soaking until the blood lifts from her skin. Already sunken into it by the time she detects him, she waves her fingers from all the way in the tub, all the doors open between the front door and the bathroom. “Hi, Shika!” she exclaims, batting at him as he approaches. “I bet you didn’t miss me!”

 “Eh. A little. Didn’t worry, if that’s what you mean.”

 “I shouldn’t love that.”

 “I went to Tsunade and I wrangled Shikamaru into giving a shit that you were late,” Chouji chips in, and Ino beams. 

 “I know you did. Tsunade told me how worried you were! And I’m sorry about that, I would have contacted you if I could! I just couldn’t risk it, not at that distance.”

 Chouji pecks the top of her head. “I forgive you.” 

 “Did you call me over just for this cutesy bullshit?” Shikamaru interjects, ready with something unwieldy to say about being behind on work. Chouji just nods. 

 “Be grateful that’s all you’re here for,” Ino mocks. “It could be much worse.”

 “I’ll bite. What’s worse?” He leans against the doorway. 

 “I could be regaling Chouji with the story of how I’m back late because I was abducted by the bodyguard of a foreign monarch and now I need to reconstruct my entire identity because there’s a bloodthirsty swordsman after me.” She rubs her thumb over a stray streak of blood on her chin. 

 Shikamaru groans, and redirects towards Chouji’s cluttered patio. “That’s not what happened.”

 “You don’t know! It was classified!” 

 “I’ll find out, and it’s not going to be that, and maybe you’ll feel bad for joking about that.”  Shikamaru challenges, through the habitual sound of him rummaging for a cigarette.  Ino sighs and rummages for the bar of soap floating on the bottom of the tub, hidden underneath pink soap scum. Typical, troublesome Shikamaru, stricken with fear he’ll lose someone. even as he rushes out.  She scrubs the dried blood from her legs. 

 Chouji perches on the edge of the tub and rests a hand on Ino’s shoulder. “He’ll probably go back to work, if he hasn’t left already.” 

 “He’s still out there,” she replies, pulling her knees up. “Wondering if I just broke protocol for the sake of a smart response."

 “Did you?"

 

* * *

 

Shikamaru chokes on holding back a cough as he drags too deep. If Ino is telling the truth, he’s going to be furious, he’s going to be full on murderous — A first, perhaps, for him. It’s been a while, at least. He tries again and this time manages to steady the shaking of his hands as he inhales. Fucking Ino, typical Ino, always looking for something smart to say. He ashes into one of Chouji’s less fortunate plants, and begins an attempt at indexing what he needs to do today versus what he wants to do - the daily debate. 

 What he wants to do is throw his lit cigarette into Ino’s bath, but that’s impulsive, and definitely not worth the trouble. He spits, and stubs out the embers with a dissatisfactory hiss. Good enough, but then he wants another, and then he wants to see if Chouji and Ino are still sucking all of the air out of the room. 

 He catches himself wondering if that’s what everyone else thinks of them too. Team Ten, Asuma’s orphans, always taking up all of the space for themselves, always finishing up for each other.  Sucking all of the air out of the room. Silently, he circles around to go back inside, and catches Chouji brushing Ino’s hair.  He sighs. “If there’s nothing else I need to go.”

 “Shika, don’t be like that.”

 “Like what, Ino?”

 “ _That._ Grumpy, and dismissive. I don’t like it.”

 “That’s too bad,” he drawls, and she pouts, splashing at the water. 

 “Come here.”

 “Why?”

 “Because I missed you.” her voice drops then, sultry and sad in the same tone.  “Regardless of if you think that’s important or not... And I think you did worry.”

 He just wants another cigarette. Against his better judgement, he turns around, sizing up Ino in the tub as the bubbles wilt around her.  

 “What’s missing me supposed to mean?”

 “It means I was away for two months, and I missed my boys."

 Chouji flushes - he never quite gets used to the variance of love they dole out upon him, ranging from paternalistic musings to romance palatable enough to entertain. It’s not that he doesn’t think he deserves it - is the multiplication of it, the way that even if Ino and Shikamaru are fighting, their love never wavers, for him and for each other. It’s their fatal flaw, and yet it’ll probably keep them alive, in the end. 

 “Can you just give me until tonight?” he barks out, and he immediately regrets the haggard tone to his voice, projecting a frustration more with the systemic insistence than Ino herself.  She doesn’t flinch, but he sees in her rising wrinkles that she’s displeased. Troublesome.  “Hey, I didn’t-“ _mean it like that_ , he tries to say, knowing she’ll cut him off. This is what they mean when people talk about asking for it.

 “No, no, don’t. You’re fine. You’re _busy_. There’s no reason you should take a break or bring work home just because I came back from a mission late. It’s an inconvenience, you’re right.  Precognition is a fault of mine... I’m overreacting, sorry,” she bites out, standing up and snatching a towel from the rack. Chouji gulps, only capable of being nervous. 

 “Ino, you know I didn’t mean it like that. I’m happy to see you but I don’t want to be late, neh, just because you were...  just need the day to get everything. And then I can see you.”  

 Her stare is unreadable. Shikamaru drags his nails against the rough denim of his jacket and nags his teeth at his lower lip. Ino scowls. “Well you’ve seen me now, so I don’t think it matters.” 

 He leaves before he can make things worse, but hearing her crash in the background as he beats a hasty retreat is torture. A life lesson in thinking before he speaks to someone who’s been half dead a month too long. 

 

He goes straight to work, still intent on getting nearly enough done despite obvious indesicion. 

 

For once in his life, Tsunade comes to him. Or rather, she passes by, and rather hastily raps on the doorframe to get his attention. 

“Nara.”

 “Tsunade. How can I help you?”

 “It’s not me you need to help. I have a task for you regarding Ino.” Shikamaru’s annoyed sigh comes out much harsher than expected. The name on everyone’s lips, Ino Ino Ino. Even his own, the traitor.  Tsunade raises a pale brow. “Why the shitty face? No, don’t answer that, I don’t need to know. Just read the damn mission report when it arrives, return it to Shizune when you’re done, and then I’ll explain. Yeah?”

 He shrugs, otherwise impassable. “I’ll be here.”

 She curls her lip at him and it’s much like a smile. 

 The scroll, already opened upon its delivery, says much of the same, and Shikamaru is pissed before he’s even finished. A skim does her work little justice. 

 

_The assignment pertaining the generalized surveillance of target Hyusuke Don  and collection of any associated intelligence is assigned to operative Ino Yamanaka, special jounin. Mission cap is at one month. Extension must be received by 3/4ths mission time. Signed, Anko Mitarashi_

 

_Mission report, documented by Ino Yamanaka during and after the course of the Hyusuke Don assignment   —_

 

_Day 1_

_Arrival in Hoshigakure at 2100, having just missed mealtime. A woman just closing her stall calls me skinny and sells me teriyaki at half price “to fatten me up”. Her soy is cut with water and her ginger paste has gone bad, but when asked about where the city goes at this time of night, she tells me in many words where I can find “a wealthy young man to entertain me”. Target acquired.   I find the target drinking in the eagle’s corner of a bar, facing towards the patrons but unhappy to be so secluded in the back. Positioning obviously result of security, which is not as was described in initial mission breakdown as a small team. Only one bodyguard tonight, but this does not mean target is underrepresented.  Relative ease of civilian passages to target coupled with eager distaste of security suggests familiarity. Vodka soda is cut with plain water. Everything is cut with water in this town._

 

_Day 5_

_Contact made with target. Upon third return to bar, target approached me. Resulting vodka soda not cut with water. Go figure. Ensuing discussion in which alias was provided. Yuuho Misake, age 24. Honey blonde hair, brown eyes, no tan. Student traveling around during the holidays, working on a pet project cataloguing relative regional changes in nationally recognized widespread plant species. Only here for a month or so,_ _if things go well. Bodyguard keeping his distance but I can tell he’s watching. His calm concerns me. Ex-nin? Will need to keep an eye on him._

 

_Day 7_

_Hyusuke has found me “running errands”. Bodyguard is still watching me. Target calls him Sayaze, in-between attempts to ply me with liquor. So far, target has loose lips, and Sayaze is keeping an eye less on me, and more on what I know. So much for security focused on client safety. Change of plans._

 

_Day 10_

_Invitation into home secured. Dinner served at 1900. The property has cameras centered around the perimeter and facing towards every major entrance. Things like windows suspiciously left alone. Are they considered impenetrable? And by who? Against what?_

_Dinner marked by an especially unhinged version of the target’s brief descent into opioids. Bodyguard is unnerved. Embarrassed? Their private candor suggests something beyond work professionalism. They’re friendly. The story probably concerns them both.  He pulls me aside after and asks that I keep tonight’s events to myself. Secondary target displays veiled interest in me - if iris and pulse responses are anything to go by. Could be that he’s embarrassed. I get the feeling he’s more of a friend who works out than a trained bodyguard. Not much to guard Hyusuke from here, in the middle of goddamn nowhere, except maybe his overgrown garden. Security cameras scrambled and disabled shortly after my departure. Don’t need anyone stumbling_ _upon my presence here later._

 

_Day 12_

_Progress. Target has fans, or maybe younger friends. A fawning, more than a little drunk girl comes by our table and asks if Hyusuke is related to older brother Faa Don - same eyes and height. Hasn’t been seen in tabloid or amateur coverage in weeks. Thought to be associated with the reason I’m here - that university drug ring. I ask if that’s the missing brother everybody in town is talking about. According to Hyusuke the “Don conspiracy” is led by an estranged uncle, who left the family trust when Hyusuke was a teenager. The tone of his voice suggests they are not entirely estranged. My suspicions that he has been the one supplying the university students are not disproven. Chance that brother is still in contact and not “missing”. Sayaze comes back and scolds Hyusuke for daydreaming about his brother again._

 

_Day 17_

_I found the distribution hub. The drugs are brought in via pick up truckson Thursday night. Overnight they are sorted, weighted, redistributed, and packaged. Whoever is working at this seems to get their first pick of things, then by Friday after classes the parcels are sold. I witnessed exchanges in the library, in the dining hall, and out in the open. In time “away” there has been a noticeable lack of the target - specifically Thursday nights. When invited out the prior Tuesday he claimed he had an appointment. He is most likely the one facilitating purchase and negotiating the margins. This explainsMonday nightbinge drinking.  Formal request to extend mission by 10 days filed._

 

_Day 20_

_Sayaze in ten days has gone from passive to aggressive. My attempts to focus on Hyusuke are all followed by his own attempts to curve the conversation towards him. Hyusuke does not fight this and nether can I. Caution is a must these last ten days. On the surface these actions are attempts to deflect - but he doesn’t seem suspicious. There are no telltale signs that he is onto me.  He expresses some telltale signs of delusion - notably in thinking he is qualified to act as a bodyguard - he’s trained in something, but decidedly not as security. Target suggests but will not outright state that he insisted upon the dismissal of previous, qualified team. Obsession with winning my attention suggests the initial interest I intended for the target to cultivate has formed, but initial surveillance didn’t suggest the element of competition. Outright “choosing” Hyusuke for the sake of the mission could have consequences. Men are so stupid._

 

_Day 22  _

_They wouldn’t sell to me, rightfully suspicious. I get the idea this operation doesn’t trust anyone they don’t know by proxy.  I did manage to lift a few while putting on the whole exhausted student act. . Samples to be sent off tonight for analyzation._

 

_Day 27_

_Samples confirmed to be the suspected amphetamines. I’ve been keeping an eye on a few students, and their behavioral trends match Sayaze. Increased pulse, erratic breathing, often short and demanding. This is the source, I think, of the pills making the rounds in the ROOT division. My medical opinion - All ANBU should be screened for chemical deficiency and then tested. Any reliance, however understandable, needs to be rid of. Target keeps a tight lip at the veiled mention of how these could be getting around. I’m sure his travel patterns are linked to the distribution - with only minimal government suspicion, he can travel freely. Asking where he plans to travel to next yields a vague reference to hiking in Amegakure with Sayaze. Sure, Don. Sayaze continues to be uncomfortable, with a cagier disposition than previously noted. His aggression has faded into paranoia._

 

_Day 30_

_Back to usual straits with the targets. Under the impression I was to return to “school” today, target insists upon throwing a celebration, catered by him, and asks that I stay with him for the remaining time, however long it is. I accept on behalf of the forward progression of this mission, but secondary target does not agree and this leads to a rousing argument between the two over, I suspect, perceived morality. Unfair of Hyusuke to impose upon Sayaze’s masculine claim to pursue me. Considering revealing interest in women to reduce predatory angle, but it’s likely to backfire with at least one of them. Semantics. Moving on - target offers to pay for my lodging, and I agree. I could use all of the time and access to investigate the money trail, though with confirmation of both interest in the family supply and a suggestion of his own involvement, I feel I’ve satisfied my conditions. In order to not raise suspicious I will leave in a week._

 

_Day 40_

_I am writing this on the day I was supposed to return home. Events are, to the best extent of my memory, as follows:_

_Secondary target Sayaze, following another attempt at questioning Hyusuke over drinks, has finally resorted to violence. Upon returning to my hotel, I found him waiting for me. He demanded to be let in and upon my subsequent denial, grabbed me and forced his way in. In the interest of a clean departure I resisted minimally and did not immediately incapacitate him - though my resistance was enough for him to not lay a hand on me further. It is civilian enough to fight back.  For the next seven days he rarely left my side - “taking a chance at something new” sounds better than forced abduction - and often invited the target over. Very little suspicion noted, despite having full run of this room.  Over the course of those days I managed to confirm both of my suspicions regarding target’s usage and the collation of flight paths and distribution hubs. Given the chance, I would welcome picking Hysuke’s brain._

_My sudden exit, however, prevented the possibility.  Sayaze caught me packing. There was an altercation. As I write this report, he is paralyzed next to me.  I’ve been drugging him with an enzymatic poison intended to react to high adrenaline levels akin to rage. He has sunken into a delusional state, unsure of whether I exist or not.  Killing him is an ugly means to an end, and would only leave loose ends. So he remains artificially paralyzed. It should wear off in a few hours. If not, not my problem. Anyway._

 

_I swear this recollection is truthful, and contains to the best extent of my knowledge, all information gathered. Signed, Ino Yamanaka._

 

It’s so like Ino to do everything except deliver the killing blow, and it burns Shikamaru inside to even yearn for being the one to make such a decisive move. 

  He snaps the folder down onto Tsunade’s desk, the question he can’t avoid making him tense. “Why didn’t you let me go after her?”

 She stares out the window. “She had it handled. It doesn’t take a village to poison someone to the point of delusion.”

 “Delusion?“ he himself on the verge of delusion, completely frustrated with the proceedings. He shuts his eyes. “She’s just a dream. Something that felt real but when you open your hands it’s no longer there.”

 “Purportedly. She could have done worse. There is no wrong way to disarm someone holding you hostage, however she will be needing protection. Precautionary measures. Hyusuke Don certainly has the assets for a search, if Sayaze Imia even has the wherewithal to demand one.  I wouldn’t be surprised if one ended up at our gates.” The way she speaks is almost demeaning - she’s above this discussion in more ways than one, but as the Hokage it is her wretched duty. She rifles through her papers, searching for something with very little determination. “She has one upcoming mission in two weeks. Land of Stone. You will be accompanying her. In the meantime she will be doing a brief unit at the academy on recognizing offensive genjutsu, overseen by Akimichi. One of you is to be with her at all times.”

 “Does she know you’ve got her cornered on all sides? Ino doesn’t like being boxed in.” He sneers. 

 “Yes, she does, and considering the circumstances she agrees. Ino Yamanaka likes being _alive_. I shouldn’t have to tell you how cruel men can be, Shikamaru.”

 There’s no wrong way to escape captivity, but a dead body breeds questions. A dead body and a girl as light as air breeds suspicion. In avoiding killing her captor she succeeded in completing the mission without blowing her cover. It’s a good example of how shinobi ideally put Konoha first, Shikamaru notes, but it still infuriates him, on her behalf and in his own way. The litany of surveillance, however familiar, has always bred apathy in Ino. She hates feeling limited. Authority has always sat on a thin line between reverence and irritation. 

 His silence prompts a furrow in Tsunade’s brow. “I’m going to interpret your silence as either understanding or agreement,” she says, and Shikamaru nods. “Good.”

 It takes very little prompting to get Shikamaru to flee authority. Always has. always will. He turns from her office and returns to his, intent on getting anything done before he’s faced with the monotony of Ino refusing to step foot in his office. 


	3. watching, waiting, commiserating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feminine wiles, effortless efficiency, and lots of sticky fluids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know what gets *me* going? overwrought smut. just agonizingly cerebral sex.

 

Predictably, she surprises him. It was one of many possibilities, prone to going down one of few routes. On his way home, a listless pursuit of something not quite accessible, he runs into her. It’s dinnertime, and he’s spent too long cooped up inside today. She’s holding a plastic bag, suspiciously slack in her hands. She looks unsurprised, and a glimpse of her previous frustration still sits between her ears.

 “Shikamaru.”

 “Ah, Ino... breaking rules already.”

 “I was coming to get _you_ ,” she says with a scowl, shoving the bag towards him. “Dinner.”

 An olive branch. He takes it with a silent plead to the universe to not rain further ruin down upon him. “Thanks, Ino. Where are you… should we take this back to yours?” _I talked to Tsunade. I know I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on you, like I haven’t spent my whole life doing that._ “Where’s Chouji?”

 “Dinner with some of the academy teachers. He said he’d try to make it fast, but knowing him he’ll wait until he’s finished his first plate.” She grins at that, and Shikamaru manages a smile. 

 “Okay… lead the way.” The blood has been scrubbed from her temple, but he can still see some under her nails as she gestures, already strutting down the street and away from him. He doesn’t waste time trying to catch up. She saunters along at her typical pace, perpetually out of reach but still within bounds. She stops to examine the floral discharge of a tree along the way, plucking a flower to peer into the depths of the pollen. Shikamaru catches up, and pauses beside her, taking the moment to examine their food. “So how much do I really need to take care of you if Chouji’s got you for the next two weeks?”

 “I don’t know,” she says with a shrug. “However much you want. Call it practice for our mission. Call it selfish. I don’t care.”

 “Shouldn’t you?”

 “Can’t say. I wanted you to care. I was on the precipice of something inextricable. I might still be, but you’re not even interested in that.  You’d rather hear the gory details than just take my word for it.” 

 “Ino...” he sighs. “You exist best aside from the gory details. I wasn’t sure you had it in you. You should be flattered I didn’t believe you.”

 “Don’t tell me how I should feel,” is all she says in response. Always an argument before either can admit they’re sorry. 

 

It’s little surprise to either that within the next hour they’re discarding each other’s clothes. Dinner a helpless attempt at civility, derailed by the persistence of her toes nudging at his ankle, and the occasional mention of regretting not removing a few collegiate fingernails. 

 “Shouldn’t we wait for Chouji?” Shikamaru hums, always content to drag something less than troublesome out. Whatever’s worth doing should be worth doing for an exponential amount of time, right? His breath is muffled by the slope of her shoulder, up towards her long neck which barely escapes the wisps of hair cascading  from her ponytail. It’s all haphazard, and predictably, Ino snorts, a wispy noise muffled by the pressure of Shikamaru’s body on hers.

  “He’ll be back. Maybe you’ll inspire him to new heights. I can barely inspire bravery enough to kiss me.”

 “You’re doing it wrong,” he decides. All wrong - Chouji subsides on the gasps of moments, the hidden corners tucked behind where he can carve out precious minutes - all he considers his domain. Predictably, it only partly sinks in that Ino and Shikamaru would have him even at his worst. Unabashed confidence - Ino’s preferred method for just about anything domestic - only leaves him feeling baited, like he’s minutes away from an irrevocable tainting. He’s used to falling prey to her traps, knowing she’ll pull him out with a laugh. 

 

Chouji walks in and huffs at the trail of clothes leading from the kitchen, the discarded alcohol a sign enough. 

 “Are you two really already going at it? I thought you’d still be mad at each other. Serves me right for leaving you to dine alone... and in my _house_!” he chides, voice a squeak as he covers his eyes and he approaches the couch, where Ino’s long blonde ponytail trails over the arm. Shikamaru’s head bobs above her bare chest, a leisurely attempt at sparking some sort of erogenous affection. 

 “Well, this is the only way Shika can supervise me without pissing me off.”

 “The correct phrase was _take care of_ ,” he sighs, more of a mutter as he runs a hand down Ino’s side. 

 “That’s worse,” Chouji whines, more put off by the fact that he can’t quite figure out where to place himself. Shikamaru sits back on his heels and fixes his bored gaze on Chouji. As his hair brushes his collarbone, he shifts it over to his back where the split ends just reach his shoulder-blades. 

 “Technically you’re supposed to keep an eye on me too,” Ino reminds him, and Chouji shrugs, sliding down into the nearest chair. 

 “Well, you kind of started without me.”

 Shikamaru shrugs. “There’s always room.” He leans back to lounge on the arm of the couch, mirroring Ino. He picks at a scab on his chest. All open space between them, earth and air.  

 “I wanted to wait for you,” Ino hums smugly, prompting Shikamaru to roll his eyes, a breathless irritation. 

 “Geez, the lies. You know Ino wouldn’t wait for anyone who didn’t make it worth her while.”

 “What are you implying?” Chouji bites back, suspicion in the air, and in that grip of time they’re back to normal, warring forces forever allied. 

 Ino’s grin, however bright, still falters. “Shikamaru! Be nice!” She warns. 

 “I’m being  _very_ nice, Ino, and what I’m implying, heh...“

 Ino flushes, and somehow it makes Chouji blush as well, and Shikamaru glances between them, silent but with a heavy weight to his brow. Ino curls up, self-conscious of her inclinations. Chouji huffs a nervous sigh. 

 “Troublesome. Forget it...” He points toward his half empty beer. “Anyone else want another?”

 “I have questions,” Chouji says.

 “No one? Just me? Okay,” he snorts, purposefully avoiding answering Chouji as he stands. Pack of cigarettes and a beer in hand, he goes, still shirtless, to the patio. 

 “Ino... questions.”

 “Yeah, Chouji?”

 “Why wouldn’t you wait? What makes it worth your while?”

 She shrugs. “Mutually assured desire, or something like that. It helps to be wanted.”

 “I want you!” he protests, weakly kicking the couch. “I want both of you.”

 She sighs again, less displeasure and more resigned. “Come here.”

 “Huh?” he shrinks away. Baited. 

 “Come heeeeeeereeee,” Ino whines, a hand reaching out to bat at him. Shy but not deterred, he takes a seat by Ino’s curled up legs. She reaches towards him, and sits up, and matches his latent nervousness with a simple kiss, all-consuming as she’s known to be. “No one’s going to hurt you, Chouji. Not on my watch.”

 And of course, he’s a total pushover, so he wastes no time in transferring her weight fully to his lap, where he cradles her in a perpetual unwillingness to break the spell. It’s the best thing about him - he’s all in, no pestilent complaining about the effort involved like Shikamaru. 

 Who very quickly realizes the decision to keep the door angled open behind him was a bad one. Even stratagem cannot predict the emotive success of Ino Yamanaka, considering she’s a full 100 when it comes to mission success. Chouji has always been something inimitable too, partial predicament and partial total joy. There’s a reason Shikamaru waffles so much about any sort of bureaucratic rendevous - a part of him relishes getting any sort of mumble of pleasure out of him. Very selfish, considering his office shares a floor with what must be ten others. His one selfish allowance, allowing his teammates so much of himself. Any other arrangement would have long since gotten a warning, but somehow InoShikaCho goes without a warning wherever they go. He checks the lock and then closes the door, though it feels a tad hypocritical to hide them just so he can finish his cigarette in peace. Or, at least, relative peace. Chouji’s elder next door neighbor is definitely watching him.  He raises a hand in pathetic hello, extremely aware that he’s burning dangerously close to the filter just trying to position himself somewhere where Granny Hikida won’t ogle him any more. Too much effort to put on pants, he’s standing in just his boxers. Best to call it, he figures, with the hair on his arm finally realizing just how crisp it gets in autumn. Just a few more drags left, and half a beer - he takes a swig, mouthful punctuated by the remnants of cigarette smoke sitting under his tongue. He coughs, an involuntary spasm. So many loose ends in the span of seconds. Another sip, this one marginally more thought out. Quarter of a beer. It’s fine, he reasons. He’s been in worse positions, shunned more important things in favor of individual attention. 

 Temari’s voice rings through his head. _I’m not going to fault you for having extenuating circumstances. But you didn’t need to have them in front of my family and the council. Next time save yourself the trouble and quit while you’re ahead, Nara._

 His bile tastes like yeast. He downs the last of the beer, more than a mouthful but he doesn’t think twice about the messy gulps required to clear the air of guilt that suddenly surrounds him, _You could’ve been happy,_ his mother chides once every blue moon, barring the unspeakable fact that no one can lay claim to truly manufacturing happiness in another. It’s just another lie they sell. 

 The cigarette burns between his fingers, close enough to the filter that it barely fizzles. He drops it into the beer can. 

 Alright. 

 

 He heads back inside, making little attempt to go quietly as he drops the beer can into the recycling and faces Chouji and Ino, cradling each other, a myriad of sweet things to share. 

 He slides himself into the chair once occupied by Chouji and watches, pensive and quite perturbed in his own nonplussed sort of way. He’s never surprised by them, so it’s no surprise they always find a way to show him up. His hand rises to scratch his chest, an errant smattering of bug bites under his nails. Ino’s chattering almost drowns out the ringing in his head. 

 “I was worried I’d have to go farther. To get myself out, if I couldn’t get away with poisoning him from the start. I mean, there’s always sex when I need it. Who cares, right?”

 Chouji brushes a stray bit of hair from Ino’s shoulder. “I care. Not everyone is so callous about something so sweet.”

 “ _Clearly_ , you hold it in such high regard you’d jump on your teammate the second she returns from a _traumatic_ event...”

 “Hasn’t that sort of _trauma_ always kept you coming back?” It’s callous himself but Shikamaru feels no guilt in breaking in. He’ll be next regardless - Chouji already reaches out towards him. It’s countless times he’s seen Ino after some of her stranger missions and she’s always up in arms about something, equal parts eager to wash the layer of filth from her skin and trapped in the momentary tedium of considering her next move. A moral quandary that befits her dual nature - both life-tender and taker. Just another sect of life, par for the course psychoanalysis doesn’t scare her much, judging from the benign terror she instills in her teammates at any mention of her interrogation tasks.  Just barr any thought of dissatisfaction - never to be lived down in her attempt to overcome, and renew, and -

 “Shikamaru, don’t be coy,” Ino complains, and he realizes Chouji is halfway to hauling him over, a gentle hand outstretched turning agitated. “But also, you’re right, so shut up.”

 He shrugs, and takes Chouji’s hand, following the offer to sit beside him. Ino smiles, right where she wants to be. Where else could be safer? Chouji grins too and rests his forehead against her cheek as she focuses on Shikamaru. 

 “You didn’t get your beer.” She points out. 

 “Didn’t want another if it was just me.” 

 “I would have had some of yours.”

 Chouji laughs, immediately and unexpectedly. It’s closer to a wheeze, an amusement that builds up. Suddenly, even as he groans her name, he wants a beer. 

 “Well I’m not getting up now,” he wheedles,  holding back a mutual laugh at Chouji’s impending crack of laughter. 

 “Don’t make him,“ he wheezes, eyes squeezed shut. And Shikamaru grins, and Ino leans in, Chouji weakly following with a shaking head in her shoulder, to breathe in the wry look in his eyes. 

 “It’s a shame you probably taste like a cigarette misted with beer.”

 “Won’t know until you find out.”

 “Maybe it’s the other way around? A glass of beer with cigarette ash floating around?” she muses. 

 Shikamaru leans in, and kisses her quiet, and she chirps out a delighted tone, a satisfied, sustained rumble in the earth around them.  His hand comes up to brush her chin, callus catching on a healed cut. Messy against her usually prim and precise features. A messier mission than she’s had in a while, clearly. It’s not exactly pity that strikes him, but it’s something akin to it - an empathy that makes him ache for the part of Ino that he knows exists, deep down, that once feared the hands of men upon her. 

 She’ll be okay, as they all are - as they all were when he and Chouji returned from their retrieval mission on the brink of death in their own ways. She didn’t cry then, not enough for anyone else to have noticed, and she held him as he did, as Chouji will hold her now while she suffocates her own fears, and they’ll make as if nothing much has changed, because it’s no one’s business what has. 

 It strikes Shikamaru that he’s just had a breakthrough, and his groan of anguish is masked as contentment as Ino trails a hand down his chest. Chouji grins at them, nudging himself in closer to press his lips wherever he can reach, eager and pleased and not feeling so shy now that he’s got them right in front of him, their lips pressed together sending heat spiraling through him in a dizzying rush. 

 “Oh shit,” he whispers, squeezing his eyes shut. Ino takes advantage of the break to tilt more into Chouji, who eyes Shikamaru with some worry but mostly appreciation, perhaps lust - if they deign to think about it past the obvious. “Don’t worry about it,” he says as Ino trails a concerned hand over his wrist. He slides off the couch and nudges the coffee table farther away with his foot - so he can go to his knees and divest Chouji of his slacks. 

 “Too many clothes?” Ino suggests, running her hand by the hem of Chouji’s shirt. At Shikamaru’s affirmative grunt, she laughs, and sinks her hand down when Shikamaru undoes the zipper. Chouji moans into her mouth, weak at the brush of their hands upon him.

 “I can’t…” he whispers. “Both of you?”

 “Only for a moment, Chouji,” she replies.

 Shikamaru smiles at the way his head lolls backs, a disbelieving shuffle of air passing through. Chouji doesn’t muffle his whimpers as Shikamaru lowers his mouth to him, lazy tongue trailing the ridge of his dick with a vapid sort of slowness. Concerned partially with making room for Ino, whose slowness he used to mistake for laziness. As she strokes his length, she fixes Shikamaru with a breezy stare, as if mocking him in her reminder that he’s next. 

 He licks a thin line of precum from Chouji, and looks unblinking back at her. She giggles, a sound drowned out by a more desperate sort of cry from Chouji. He’s shaking in between them, the hand holding Ino’s clenching just a little too tight. Shikamaru busies himself with pleasing Chouji instead of teasing Ino secondhand. If he was stressed before, Chouji’s downright overwhelmed now - the way he moans and laces his hand in Shikamaru’s hair suggests panic, and Shikamaru looks up without breaking his stride to his partner’s flushed face.  Ino reads the room and retracts her hand, focusing her attention between her own legs as she kisses Chouji. His weak sighs are punctuated by her own high pitched sounds, and Shikamaru doesn’t bother hiding his smile. The two press anxious kisses upon the angles of their faces, Chouji nuzzling against Ino’s cheekbone as she kisses the curve of his ear. 

 “C-come up, please,” Chouji pleads, his knuckles white. “I don’t know what good I’ll be if I— _Shikamaru_ ,” and his eyes snap open, desperate scolding already dead in the air as the man in question sinks a little further down, tongue flattened against him as he forcibly relaxes his throat, visibly choosing to ignore the worries of where Chouji should come.

 “What good do you want to be? Worry about you,” Ino says, her hand between her legs slowing. “not about us.”

 “I want you two to feel good too,” he says amidst the ritualized bobbing of their partners head, and Ino curls her lips up into a knowing smile. 

 “I feel good. Shika? Are you happy?”

 He hums as enthusiastic a _yes_ as he can manage, which is still a dutiful _mhm_ that in practice vibrates out of his throat, and so Chouji cums with a desperate, deeply satisfied cry of _oh please!_  

 Bored, lazy, and completely smitten, Shikamaru closes his eyes and swallows like it’s not even up for debate. As Chouji gulps down a huge breath of relief, Ino slides a finger into herself and whimpers into his ear: “Shikamaru can fuck me now, and you’ll help.”

 Chouji shivers, soothed and sated, as Shikamaru comes up for air. “I hear my name?”

 “You’re next,” she jeers, and Shikamaru shrugs in response. He slides over to meet her, then reaches out and tugs her closer to the edge of the couch. Taking her panties off is marginally difficult, with her weight distributed as it is, but with her hands by his they manage, and he gets her legs over his shoulders. She’s moved her hand by then, and he delves between her legs with an equal lack of perceived enthusiasm. It’s as easy as breathing to get her off with his mouth, and as such he doesn’t think much of it when the moment’s right. If he’s already on his knees for Chouji, might as well be on his knees for Ino. 

 “Not exactly what I meant,” she says, though she still spreads her legs for him with a chilling ease. Her ankles cross at the dip of his shoulder blades and he lays his tongue, tired from his work on Chouji, on her clit and laps at it. She already had herself worked up, he’s just helping out before he takes her, and himself in the process. She tips her head back and cries out, a gentle moan that carries from the back of her throat. “Just a little more, I’m already…”

 “I know,” he says, not breaking his pace, and she sighs. 

 “Of course you do.” like it’s the sexiest thing she’s ever heard. Just a simple affirmation and it makes her melt. 

 Chouji, feeling literally melted, gets some strength back and ponders his next move. Watching feels like second-nature, which is a revelation chilling enough that it keeps him still in his spot curled up by Ino. He satisfies himself with tracing a loose circle on her bent knee. She laughs, meeting his glance and grinning at him. Her turn to soak up the spotlight, she knows he likes the show. It’s juvenile to ask. 

 Shikamaru, when he rises, nearly tumbles into them, and Chouji catches him by the elbow to steady him. He lets himself laugh freely at Shikmaru’s sheepish look - enough time on his knees has made his feet fall asleep - and he attempts to rise himself. “Come on team. To bed! I don’t think Shikamaru can stand.”

 He doesn’t argue with that assessment, though he does snag Chouji for a brief kiss as he extends a hand to Ino, and they move rooms silently. Chouji wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and almost sighs. His two thirds, and him.  Ino’s already naked, and Shikamaru nearly there as well, leaving Chouji to undress as Shikamaru shimmies out of his boxers. Ino fixes him with a cynical stare as she gets comfortable on the edge of the bed. 

 “On my back?”

 “However you want,” he mutters, having shifted his attention to the bedside drawers. He hems and haws until he comes up with a condom, and turn back to find Chouji fully naked, and leaning against the wall of his cramped bedroom. He falters, unsure of who to look at, and invariably flushes. “I’m not picky.” It’s the truth, but still an admission he’s weak to admit. He wants to be opinionated, sometimes, when it matters, but being in charge isn’t his style. It’s why he’s always let Ino lead: she calls the shots, and he and Chouji knock 'em down.  

 The other man in question doesn’t look mortified so much as put on the spot, despite his silence. He’s thinking of something, though whether or not he likes it is a different beast.  Ino tempers her impatience with a very pointed focus on the tangled ends of her hair. She doesn’t look up in recognition of the persistent huff Chouji lets out, but as he comes up behind her and circles her with his legs, she snuggles back into him. 

 “Like this, Shika.” she points out, contemplating the loosening spread of her legs. “I want you here.” As far as contentment goes, it’ll do. He puts the condom on blindly, gaze fixed on his teammates. He’s always been aware of them, having been consigned into service beside them since birth - but it doesn’t change how breathless he feels, just looking at Chouji wrapping his arms around her, head resting aside hers, and her tilting her head back to connect with him. This is love, maybe, the sort that keeps him going on three hours of sleep.  The thought gets him hard, which he hates despite the physical convenience of it, and as he rolls the condom on he considers retreating simply for the sake of self-discipline, but he’s been warned by more than one post-mission psych eval that castigation is a form of penance best savored in rare moments. Too much, and you lose the will to carry on completely, and as much as he, deep-down, wouldn’t mind moving away to live a quiet life of deer-tending and chain-smoking over a good, overwrought pile of books, his dad would come up out of the grave and kill him if he didn’t at least produce an heir first. 

 That makes him go a little limp, and he resigns himself to the task of stepping between Ino’s legs and, as his knees come to rest and sink into Chouji’s squashy bed, kissing her. His hands come up to cradle her face, as Chouji keeps his hold on her, and all of this touching must feel like being pampered, but it strikes a note of deep absolution in Ino. When she reaches for his cock, he drops a hand to see if she’s ready, and with the pad of his finger brushing her clit, she guides him inside her. Like clockwork; being within her makes him curse through his teeth. Chouji laughs, sparing a hand to reach up and touch Shikamaru’s face, his thumb brushing the skin of his chin. Shikamaru darts his tongue out, just to tease, as he cants his hips against Ino’s. Their hands are all a jumble - hers on Shikamaru’s hip, Chouji with one hand on Ino’s stomach and the other leaning towards Shikamaru’s bottom lip, Shikamaru touching Ino and putting his weight on his other hand, on Chouji’s leg. It all feels like too much, and they all feel it like a papercut, burning and under the skin and permanent in the most fleeting way. A razor’s edge between tumbling over themselves into the chasm, and heeding the call of their expert control to keep their goals singular. The little whimper Chouji gives at the way Ino’s breathing gets shallow makes Shikamaru go slack, and he takes his hand from Ino to hold Chouji’s. Their hands entwined over Ino’s stomach feels like a promise - mutually agreed upon.  It strikes Ino that her own extenuating circumstances - the disappearance of Sai, the rise of her profile in the wake of the war - are only helped along by this, the overarching duty that leaves the three of them attentive to each other regardless of the cause of effect. How considerate, really, to fall into bed with the three people she’s actually allowed to value as deeply as she does Konoha. 

 Chouji gives her a messy kiss to the cheek, mumbling something uncouth and warm in her ear, followed by his hand coming between her legs to the junction of her and Shikamaru, fingers on her clit, taking her breath away. She gasps for air, inhaling the syllables of his name. Shikamaru’s dutiful strokes break pace, his hips stuttering as he notches himself a little deeper in her, his own wordless keening chasing after hers. Chouji registers that he should be feeling jealousy, but with his own release long-since attained, and part of his thrill derived from watching the two of them come undone, he’s better than good. Male pride and power fantasies dictate that Shikamaru should really care about how long he lasts, but he’s never really been able to muscle up enough virility to preen about it. Chouji can go forever - he’s solid behind Ino and grinning so wide it makes his chest ache - and they all care about it feeling good, because it’s the least they can do. He does enough for the sake of other people, so if he wants to find a quiet place between someone’s legs every once in a while, that’s for him. But as such, he finds himself reaching a desperate, haunting peak sooner than expected, leaving him wondering if there’s such a thing as being out of practice. How can he be out of practice? He laughs, and looks from Chouji to Ino.

 “You’re a little too quiet.” he chides, releasing Chouji’s hand to run a finger under the swell of her chest. “Not having fun?”

 “Don’t be ridiculous,” she snaps, her hand going to his. “just because I’m not doing whatever it is you expect me to do doesn’t mean I’m bored.”

 “A little enthusiasm wouldn’t hurt, Ino. You seem dissatisfied.”

 She answers that with a frustrated, vicious spasm of her muscles, and he chokes on a complete failure of an apology. Chouji soothes her squirming indignantion with a gentle brush of his fingers to her skin, a skill only he possesses and wields with any reasonable sense of haste or apprehension. The true meaning of satisfaction is mutually assured destruction, and when he finds the energy to work his hips against hers in the anxious, obsessive way she likes - sex with Ino is all about emotion, some way or another - cumming feels like total decimation. His whispers of _Ino, please Ino_ feel heavy in the air. His willpower shattered, it takes significant time to remove himself from her.  He continues at a slower pace as he softens, content to watch Chouji’s ministrations coax her closer to her own edge. His desperate pleas certainly didn’t hurt her own desire. He’s tempting to add his own fingers back to his mix, but it feels selfish to not allow Chouji the solitary rights to finishing Ino. On the other hand, it feels dismissive to pull out without seeing it through. The rush of blood makes his head pound. He opts to pull out and rid himself of the condom whilst doing his best to stay in the moment with them. He misses in his attempt to toss it aside. Ino’s whimpering grows bolder, a clear enough sign that she’s racing toward her precipice, as she stumbles over her voice. Shikamaru sliding out of her prompts an agitated, disappointed moan that recalls his own precious single-mindedness. He caresses the sharp angle of her right cheekbone and leans in to kiss her. It does well enough to satiate her craving, and Chouji doesn’t leave her feeling empty for long. The temptation strikes him to sit her upon his own cock, now aching, but he knows from near the bottom of his king sized bed that he can’t reach the condoms. Mind over matter, he hauls Ino up and, leaning back to accommodate, positions her just so. She and Shikamaru both protest the forced separation, for however briefly it lasts, prompting him to clamber further up the bed to remain close. Chouji lays back, content to feel Ino grind her opening against him as Shikamaru keeps his legs spread enough for his own knees to fit, squeezes together. He goes back to kissing Ino with a drunken fervor, intoxicated with the pleasure that radiates between all three of them. Not quite able to touch her clit, with her pressing it against Chouji’s rigidity, he swipes a hand over the swell of her left breast and teases a callused thumb over her nipple. She shudders, leaning into it - which doesn’t unbalance her, but she does come to rest her hands on him. “Come on, Ino,” he encourages, his voice thin from exertion. “It’s all you right now. You and Chouji, I’m just riding the coattails of the two of you,” prompting a hoarse objection from Chouji. 

 “Absolutely _not_ , you’re part of this too, I’d be inside you if I could but I can’t be inside either of you-“ he gasps for air. “I can’t but that’s ok, next time.” 

 Ino, to her credit, adores their chatter. Every drawn out, distracted word is hers to cherish, a byproduct of the indelicacy they’ve submerged themselves in irreparably. She writhes against both of their touches, her eyes wide and unfocused as she yearns without relief, so close and yet somehow unable to reach her release. The pursuit of her own destruction is the only time she reeks of desperation. 

 “Chouji, _please_ I need it,” she manages, her head falling onto Shikamaru’s shoulder. “Please!”

 Begging doesn’t suit her, in the way a diet doesn’t suit Chouji. It’s not often useful, but occasionally a validated preference. Chouji props himself up on his elbow and with his other hand curls around Ino’s hip.  With her hips canted up his dick sits by her cunt, perpetually teasing the tender area, and he has room to take some of the wetness around her and press a slick finger to her clit. His touch is urgent, a frenzied pleading of his own. Caught between Shikamaru’s slow caress and Chouji’s inescapable friction, she aches for both. Within that barefaced lust she finally cums, her voice cracking as she revolves into a broken, whispered chant of simultaneous thanks and curses. 

 Relaxing feels accessible, after the drawn out tension of the evening, as she allows herself the space beside Chouji. Shikamaru joins them without delay, his legs tangling with Chouji’s as he spreads out. 

 “Are we all going to need a bath?” Chouji ponders. His tub, big as it is, isn’t entirely likely to hold all three of them. It’s a gamble Shikamaru hasn’t considered vital, so he shrugs. Sticky as he is, cleaning up is just another menial task. Ino runs her hands over herself, assessing the damage, and follows suit. 

 “I can wait.” It must feel like relief to have sweat and her own wetness on her instead of blood and poison. The sanctity of her body feels shaky regardless, but in terms of degradation, comfort in consent outweighs the order of duty. Is it degrading, even, when it ceases to be the usual pleasure chase and becomes just another tool in her arsenal? His own clinical nature unshakable, Sai used to pull her hair and spank her and tie her up in various attempts to make her feel something primalistic. The irony of the reversal isn’t lost on her, but it doesn’t feel funny when she knows Sai’s inability to break her of her own extraneous clinical behavior was just another crack in the foundation. The crux of her ability to turn it on and off has always been her refusal to be a lab subject. It’s both liberating and shameful to let go of it now, but there’s always been the underlying resentment at feeling like a specimen. With her hand on Chouji’s chest, she feels as raw as she felt as a teenager, when everything was new. His hand comes up to rest in her head, spooling fingers in her hair. Shikamaru tends to the bug bite on his rib cage by digging a shallow pinkie nail into it, and he seems surprised by Ino reaching out to him. A few seconds out of it and he almost forgets where he is.  With his legs splayed out over Chouji’s, he can’t quite turn to face Ino, so he settles for taking her hand in his and pressing a lingering kiss to the back of it. 

 She giggles, and brushes the knuckle of her middle finger over the corner of his lips. “That’s what I get for thinking you’re lazy. You boys are too good for me.”

 “I should be the one saying that,” Chouji argues, feeling utterly exhausted. 

 “Argue about it all you want. I’m going to bed.”

 “We’re all going to bed, Shika, you’re not special.”

 “Why would I consider myself special for that? Sleeping’s the most natural, accessible thing in the world,” which is why he _loves_ it. His eyes flutter shut, tuning the extra hum of their world out. 

 “At least get under the covers.” Chouji is partway between fretting and joining him. It’s only Ino who’s still a live wire, threatening to bounce around the room if they don’t reel her in. Chouji gets up with marginal effort and pulls back the covers with one efficient snap of his wrist. It startles Ino up, and Shikamaru stands up with her after an absolutely abysmal amount of dedication. He fumbles for the condom, and Ino snatches it up. 

 “I’ll deal with this. You look like you’re going to collapse.” she says it with a particular upturned point of her nose, which reads as a warning even though his increasingly groggy senses. 

 He whines at her, as equally pointedly. “I need to pee anyway, it doesn’t matter who throws it away as long as it happens.” 

 She trounces into the bathroom, straight for the bin, and he follows. As he relieves himself, she perches on the counter and runs her hands under the water, eyes latched other reflection in the mirror. She examines her tussled up bangs and the red flush of her cheeks. “Why do I look so messy? I wasn’t even on my back.” He shrugs wordlessly as he tips the seat of the toilet up. “Say, Shika, are you ever going to tells us what happened?”

She always finds a way to smack right into him without touching him. Her clear mind has always saved him, but it doesn’t mean it keeps her out of trouble. He goes quiet, and breathless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shikamaru's a little bit of a coward when it comes to non-life threatening situations, but never let it be said he isn't game.   
> next chapter in the works, ft. a little more about temari and shikamaru, some Danger, some cute, who knows?


End file.
